Dead Water 1.0 for BfW 1.8

[opensourcejunkie]

I'll fix these before I upload it again. Not "turns" though. Paraphrasing: "He was in turns angry because of this and grateful because of that." "Turn" wouldn't work. I guess it might be awkward, so I'll consider rewording it. Farther vs. further is sort of a new thing, and not everyone makes the distinction. I will change it though.

Yeah, sorry if I came off as a bit nitpicky :-/. Didn't mean to.

By the way, I just wrote some code for my campaign (Sceptre of Life) yesterday that I thought you might like to use. All it is, really, is a bit of eye candy for a portal that I made; I thought that maybe you might like to use it for caladon's teleportation to the sword in scenario 10.

Basically, I took the images for a white mage's light beam attack, and reversed it. so, instead of light coming down, light goes up, creating a sort of "beam me up scotty" effect. Then, in your case, you would reverse the animation to a "beam me down scotty" effect upon Caladon's reentry.

Just thought I'd put that out there, in case you thought you could use it. Feel free to discard it though,
--OSJ

Code: Select all

#define SOL_ITEM X Y IMAGE
    [item]
        x={X}
        y={Y}
        image={IMAGE}
    [/item]
#enddef

#define SOL_HALO X Y IMAGE
    [item]
        x={X}
        y={Y}
        halo={IMAGE}
    [/item]
#enddef

#define SOL_CLEAR_ITEM X Y
    [removeitem]
        x={X}
        y={Y}
    [/removeitem]
#enddef

#define SOL_ANIMATION_ITEM X Y IMAGE
    {SOL_ITEM {X} {Y} {IMAGE}}
    [redraw][/redraw]
    [delay]
        time={TIME}
    [/delay]
    {SOL_CLEAR_ITEM {X} {Y}}
#enddef

#define SOL_ANIMATION_HALO X Y IMAGE TIME
    {SOL_HALO {X} {Y} {IMAGE}}
    [redraw][/redraw]
    [delay]
        time={TIME}
    [/delay]
    {SOL_CLEAR_ITEM {X} {Y}}
#enddef

...

## pre-teleport
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-7.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-6.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-5.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-4.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-3.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-2.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-1.png 15}

...

## post-teleport
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-1.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-2.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-3.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-4.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-5.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-6.png 15}
{SOL_ANIMATION_HALO 5 7 halo/holy/light-beam-7.png 15}

[Sneezy]

Hi beetlenaut-- I agree with turuk and cretin; I wouldn't change the difficulty. The first time through the harder scenarios was kind of painful, and led to some thinking about strategy, time of day, etc. And the second time through required some thinking and care, but was successful in each case. So I think you've got it set correctly for an expert-level campaign.
I'm looking forward to playing again with the improved sprites. Cheers!
--sneezy

[Turuk]

See, even one of Snow White's dwarves agrees with me!

Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the name.

Beetlenaut, you already have your campaign listed as intermediate level, and if it would make you feel better, you could change it to read expert level. But I would stick with intermediate, because you already offer 4 different difficulty levels, which is more than fair.

Think of it this way:

Beginner (Maybe change this to Easy, and not Beginner)
-A bit below the intermediate level, a challenge not fit for new players, but for players who are still learning the more advanced tactics of the game or who are just not too good but want to try a UMC

Normal
-The base line on which the campaign is measured, this should be the difficulty you primarily balance the campaign for, and then base the other difficulties off of this one.

Challenging
-For the veteran players who have long played the mainline campaigns on hard, this will provide them with (surprise) a challenge, test their abilities, and generally be more difficult than regular players can handle.

Difficult
-For the hardcore players, those who are used to easily winning campaigns on hard and want something that will potentially frustrate even them.

[beetlenaut]

i didn't get him halfway, about on quarter. anyway, is the campaign actually finished ? if not what happens when you reliese an update.. do i restart? also, I offer any help you need. particularly map making... i love doing that !!

The campaign is finished, but there will be some more updates. I need to add graphics for Kai Krellis at level 3, and I might make some significant changes to the last scenario. You won't need to restart. You just may not see all of the changes if you don't.

[beetlenaut]

Basically, I took the images for a white mage's light beam attack, and reversed it. so, instead of light coming down, light goes up, creating a sort of "beam me up scotty" effect. Then, in your case, you would reverse the animation to a "beam me down scotty" effect upon Caladon's reentry.

Wow! I was planning on doing exactly that when I got around to it! I was going to use it for any time he teleports. It's certainly much faster when someone else does it though. I haven't tried it yet, (I'm getting ready to go out of town for a few days) but I probably will use it.

[opensourcejunkie]

Wow! I was planning on doing exactly that when I got around to it! I was going to use it for any time he teleports.

wow; cool! glad to save you some time :-). Out of curiosity, would you be firing an event when he teleports, or incorporating it into his unit definition ('cause the way I did it, you'd have to fire an event). If you are firing an event upon teleportation, could you let me know how you do it? 'cause I can't seem to find a way to detect when a unit uses teleport.

Thanks,
--OSJ

[beetlenaut]

Wow! I was planning on doing exactly that when I got around to it!

Well, I tried it, and it was cool. Then, because I had nothing better to do, I experimented, and came up with something I like even better. (This is what can happen when I don't have an Internet connection!) I gave the new animation its own topic: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22967

I can't seem to find a way to detect when a unit uses teleport.

I don't think there is one.

[Zephyrus]

I just played your campaign all the way through on hard. It was great; thanks for making it!

I noticed one tiny bug - if Gwabbo is dead on the scenario where you're looking for Caladon, there's some dialog that doesn't make sense.

[mich]

Hi beetlenaut, great campaign.
Some time ago I have translateted it in italian (version 0.9.3).
You can find the translation at wescamp.
Bye.

[beetlenaut]

I just played your campaign all the way through on hard. It was great; thanks for making it! I noticed one tiny bug - if Gwabbo is dead on the scenario where you're looking for Caladon, there's some dialog that doesn't make sense.

That isn't in 0.9.4 is it? I've changed that level recently, and Gwabbo doesn't even talk any more. (I'm not sure I remember where he did.) Anyway, I'm planning to change the behavior of bats on that level, which will change the dialog a little.

Hi beetlenaut, great campaign. Some time ago I have translateted it in italian (version 0.9.3).

Hey, that's great! Thank you!

[mich]

Hi again, during the translation process I have noted that some string were missing in the .po file (some units descriptions), so today I have looked at the code and found this

Code: Select all

#textdomain wesnoth-deadwater"

in some unit file (Citizen.cfg, Child_king.cfg, Brawler.cfg, and some others).
Probably the problem is that " at the end of the line.
Maybe, after you fix this little problem, I can update the translation.
Bye.

[beetlenaut]

Maybe, after you fix this little problem, I can update the translation.

Whoops. I fixed it, but I have to wait a day or two to upload the fixed files. I'm in the middle of changing a scenario.
Edit: Welcome to the forums, and thanks for posting!

[csarmi]

First of all, the 1st scenario is doable with getting lots of XP and lots of gold too, if you're careful (you don't lose water/swamp villages and only a few land ones).

What I did was:

1) sent a few unit to the south (not enough!) to prevent the AI from taking the swamp (I succeeded using AI's inherent dumbness: he never even THREATENED 15,23 by zombies plus kept retreating when he shouldn't have).

2) sent some units around to collect the villages. Gwabbo kept taking the northeastern villages while healing (I made a mistake here too: sent one too few units and on a bad luck run I've lost 2 or 3 villages to a bat running away)

3) protected 32,13 with my strongest forces (even at night!) and managed to keep it all the way. lost some citizens and a fighter there

4) 21,13 and 19,13 was secured (not too well) by a fighter and some citizens vs his water zombies (lured them that way: but my defense wasn't good enough and I lost a resilient fighter on a 5/9 vs 60%). the villages never fell, however

In the end, I was winning the fight around 32,13 and level'd a brawler or two plus my initiates got a lot of XP (one level'd quite fast). My priestess helped there of course. In the meantime, I managed to just hold my ground everywhere else (lost quite a few units, but never the villages so the AI was limited to ground zombies (except for the 9-10 or so that were inevitable), and skeletons (I made it a priority to kill any bats). I've won the game because of my sheer number of units (I controlled 25-30 villages the whole game) and my water superiority which enabled me to pick out his forces at will. Sooner or later I could afford to move my big army and destroyed the AI's forces everywhere. I stopped recruiting around turn 13 or so.

I ended up with 360 gold for the next scenario on nightmare, a lot of levelups AND my king being level 1.

The 2nd scenario is quite doable and I actually killed all the leaders easily. Only problem was that due to a stupid misjudgement (thought it would be faster to kill the SW one), I finished the game on turn 18 only.

My strategy was simple:
I've sent tons of initiates and priests on the NE, and killed that leader and his troops very fast (he had like 3 spectres which fell like flies - lured them into water - then he kept recruiting deathblades which were even easier).

I ignored the SE, and killed the bats in the 14,12 area (the SW leader recruited ALL blood bats) by a few initiates, some hunters/fighters and several civilians. THen kept fighting in that area, sometimes retreating to my castle almost, waiting for ms NE army to finish (the SE ghosts and ghouls got there by then too). When it did, I killed the center, then split my forces in two and took out both leaders. Due to some serious bad luck at a certain point, plus bad judgement, I had to fight the SW leader with some troops available which made it quite hard (and even lost my best level2: a netcaster with quick/res).

This, however, instead of giving me any bonus, just screwed me for the ENTIRE campaign. I was broke in all maps. Had a lot of fun reading stuff as "an easy map to give you a break" (vs the wolves where I had to kill 10+ pillagers and 5+ knights with like 5 units - 60 starting gold) or "recruit two castles of troops and charge the SE lizard" (I had 60(!) gold so my only chance was staying low profile while some troops kept taking villages and the 100g bonus, then I had to fight the whole lizard army at once), not to mention the rest of the maps (they became easier and easier).

I felt being cheated while actually defeating the leader resulted in much harder maps and not even any bonus (not even some cosmetical ones), while just not recruiting anything and heading to the corner woulf have left me with 300-400g for ALL the maps (and easy victory everywhere).

[beetlenaut]

I felt being cheated while actually defeating the leader resulted in much harder maps and not even any bonus

I'm sorry you felt cheated. I feel bad about it. In my defense, the objectives didn't say you got a bonus, and I didn't think you could defeat all the leaders. I certainly couldn't. But, that's why I needed people to playtest the hardest difficulty--It's too hard for me. (If only the best players could write campaigns, there would be far fewer of them.)

How about if I give you 80 gold for each leader you defeat on "Flight"? Or do you have another suggestion?

I didn't end up calling the hardest difficulty "Nightmare" in the difficulty selection dialog, but it might be appropriate. Do you think it's equivalent to Northern Rebirth at "Nightmare" difficulty? If so, I'll switch it to that officially.

The reason the walkthough is only in the cfg files, is that I'm not sure it's accurate. It's just what I did on normal to make sure the scenaria were beatable. If you want to post a walkthrough on the wiki for how to beat the campaign on the hardest difficulty (whatever I should call it), that would be great. I'll give it a try myself.

[csarmi]

Would be much better to give a fancy loyal unit or something. The final scenario(s) are a cakewalk anyway, as long as you don't get the AI to recruit better (maybe you should finetune its recruits manually, even on a turn-by-turn bases).

You could also set those starting golds better. When you expect the player to be broke (you should be during the long journey), you could set its gold better. Just an example: those 60 starting golds could be 78 or smth like that, allowing you to get 3 recalls and 2 level0's.

BTW, in the wolf map, the enemy leader just didn't recruit at first, he only did after getting home. (which I could have prevented, was I more careful)

The AI is unnecessarily passive in some maps too. In the first map I managed to hold THREE swamp villages with 2 citizens for several turns (vs a bat who never took them, attacked citizens instead) and 5+ ground zombies who never even tried to threaten said villages.

Make sure the AI tries to take as many villages as posssible.

The second map would be much harder if the AI didn't get so many high level units (who die easily too).